


Beauty and the Beast AU

by AoiHerondale, black_tea_blue_pens



Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Beauty and the Beast AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AoiHerondale/pseuds/AoiHerondale, https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_tea_blue_pens/pseuds/black_tea_blue_pens
Summary: With the hand with which she was caressing the rose, she pointed to Baz. It was for an instant. Then she moved closer and put the rose in his pocket.“Do not lose it. You have a hundred years to find your ... ‘love’.”Translation of the fanfic by black_tea_blue_pens, based on the post by baz-the-cat.tumblr.com





	Beauty and the Beast AU

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ninanineto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninanineto/gifts).
  * A translation of [Bella y la Bestia AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7066078) by [black_tea_blue_pens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_tea_blue_pens/pseuds/black_tea_blue_pens). 



#  **Year 119 Before the Rose:**

The streets were covered with banners. On each window, on each balcony. Joy had filled the capital and was spreading throughout the country, to the rhythm of the gallop of the twenty messengers who had immediately set off for the main cities of the country. A single name on everyone’s lips, taking everyone out into the street: the women in their party dresses, the men in their Sunday best and  the children with flowers in their hands.

Inside the palace that dominated the center of the city, in the ample bedroom of Queen Natasha, she layed in bed, holding the cause of all the commotion. While children and elders, rich and poor, nobles and plebeians swarmed under the balconies of the palace with noisy expectation, Fiona, Natasha's sister, well-known for her impatience and for having her own way of doing things, burst into the bedroom. As the king paced back and forth across the wide hallway like a caged lion, waiting and despairing, gray eyes opened for the first time.   
Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.

#  **Year 105 Before the Rose:**

They called him Baz. He was a prince with his feet on the ground and with a good head on his shoulders, full of common sense. Perhaps the premature  death of Natasha, his mother, when giving birth to her third child had something to do with his premature maturity. Or maybe not. At the age of fourteen he had already assumed that he was going to be king. At the age of fourteen, half the kingdom loved him and the other half adored him. At the age of fourteen he began to lose the childish features and acquire a beauty that had been announced since he was a child. At the age of fourteen his world began to collapse.

__________

It must have been around nine in the evening when the carriage arrived at its destination. The kings descended from it, followed quickly by their heir to find themselves before a palace that, while not as big as theirs, didn’t fall short either. They followed the butler into the palace, all the way to the throne room: it was the first time that Baz had traveled as a prince and therefore, the first time he visited another throne room. This one in particular was especially luxurious, with the walls full of paintings that depicted episodes of that country’s history; the floor covered in marble and the huge glass chandeliers hanging from a ceiling that seemed unreachable.

Baz did not see any of that.

At the back of the room, two armed and uniformed guards stood on either side of a dais. Above it, two dark wooden thrones with red upholstery held the king and queen, who rose to their feet when they saw his parents walk in and came to greet them, immediately abandoning all formalites.

Baz did not see that either.

His gaze was fixed on the green-eyed young man who, next to his parents, was advancing towards him. Jamie, was his name; his parents had told him he was two years older than him and he was the only son of those kings. His mere presence completely flustered him, and he had to try as hard as he could to concentrate and remember where he was. All it took was for the boy to return his gaze and smile to make Baz's pulse speed up.

#  **Year 100 Before the Rose.**

The day was going badly. Really badly. Actually, everything had been going badly for quite some time.

Baz had come to a conclusion about his sexuality a couple of years ago, the same amount of time he had been hiding it from his parents. He had been rejecting princess after princess with all kinds of excuses: his father had accepted them at first. But after the fifth visit that had ended in refusal, he became more insistent: Baz found it increasingly difficult to convince his father that none of the young women he was introduced to was adequate and knew that, sooner or later, he would have to get married. Not only that: he had to marry a woman. They had instilled in him his responsibility to his people and with his family all his life and yet...

Each day he had more and more doubts. And as they increased, the pressure about his marriage increased as well. Baz still maintained the facade of external perfection while everything inside him crumbled day after day, and the only one who seemed to notice was Penny, the young housekeeper of the castle: the one who had taken care of his younger siblings after the death of Natasha. His father, busy as he was with State affairs, had stopped paying attention to Baz as a son and only saw him as an heir. His stepmother had never had a close relationship with him and was not going to start having one now, and as for his aunt ... He adored his aunt. But she was not the best person to go to with his problems.

It was Baz's nineteenth birthday. With the excuse of celebrating his coming of age, the king had summoned all possible candidates for becoming his son's wife, including those who had been rejected, and all the important international dignitaries. Among the guests there were even a few gentlemen who decided that it didn’t hurt to try. Jamie was also there, but seeing him enter arm in arm with his newly acquired wife and smile at him like the first time, only put Baz in a worse mood. He would have given anything to escape to the kitchen with Penny, but after all that party revolved around him. He could not let so many people down.

_____________

Princess Agatha Wellbelove was the fifth of nine, born after three boys and a girl. From her earliest childhood she had known that her chances of reigning or even receiving more than a dowry were completely nil, so at the age of seven her parents sent her to a foreign boarding school: a co-ed school called Watford where, in addition to teaching her literature, history, mathematics and some science, they taught her traditional magic. She spent nine years in that school, coming first to hate it and then to love it and when she came back at sixteen, the first thing she did was to look for a job. In her country, a particularly liberal one, she was well known for her spells of all kinds. Meanwhile, her older brother inherited the kingdom; the rest, after fighting for a couple of ducats in no man's land for a while, got into the military or became monks and her sisters were all engaged. She had assumed that she would live as she did then and had no problem with that.

However, when she heard from her older sister that Basilton, Prince of Pitch, was looking for a wife, she came to the sensible conclusion that it was now or never.

The ballroom doors, already closed behind the one who was supposed to be the last guest, opened. The whole crowd turned their heads at once, including Baz, who used it as an excuse to cut the boring conversation he was having with the count of someone-or-other about boar hunting or something like that. In the door frame stood Agatha: blue eyes, soft features. Long blonde hair collected in a complicated hairstyle that left the neck exposed. Dress the color of her eyes, tight and floor length. In that moment more than one wanted to be in Baz's shoes because, without previous rehearsal or prompting, a corridor formed between them, and she, with a shyness not entirely feigned, began to advance towards him. It was much better than the girl had expected: from his gray eyes with shades of what seemed like green, to his slender body and long legs, perfectly highlighted by the suit.

Baz was dancing. With Agatha Wellbelove. And he did not know how or why he had ended up in that situation: the same one that he had been avoiding all afternoon. If he had looked around, he would have seen more than one face of disappointment, and not just among the ladies. However, between the dizziness, the bad mood and the bewilderment, he did not see much beyond the end of his nose. She talked. She kept talking. Her voice echoed in his head, and it was pleasant and well modulated but he deemed it unbearable. Everything was unbearable in that moment.

The piece ended. Arm in arm, they went out into the garden, and nobody seemed to want to stop them, which they both appreciated, but for different reasons. Agatha kept talking as they walked among the roses that Baz's father had planted as one his wedding gifts to Natasha. An occasional "uhm", "yes", "I see" or a simple nod from Baz kept her happy. Baz's father had taught him well.

“And ... Well, Basilton.”

"Baz," he interrupted.

“Baz. Do you intend to get married?” There it was. THE question. Baz shrugged.

"I should," he answered. “I suppose at some point I will.”

“What do you think of me as a candidate?”

_ How straightforward _ , Baz thought. More than any of the girls before her.

"To put it bluntly" she continued “I know that your parents are pressuring you. Honestly, I do not know why you have not given in and I'm not interested either. But..."

“Stop. Don’t go there” Baz had not seen that coming. As Agatha spoke, the image began to develop in his head. The word that was missing. What none of those girls had, not even her, and what even Baz himself lacked.

“But if you married me, all that would be solved: you would have a lot of freedom. Pure convenience, for both.”

“Convenience? And what about happiness? I can assure you that I have no interest in making anyone happy.” Baz found that he was resorting to everything he had not to explode, and he was not even sure why: he knew that it was completely unjustified, that she had not tried anything that the others had not tried and yet …

“I don‘t care about that. It's not like I think I'm going to find the love of my life.”

Love. There it was. The reason why it seemed unfair to marry a woman, both to her and to him. His expression changed and Agatha saw it clearly. She let out a very inconsiderate laugh.

“Are you serious? You? The crown prince of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the known world? Looking ... For love? You have to be kidding me.”

“WILL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU BRAT!?” -Baz lost his temper. He felt unwell. Very unwell. And he wasn’t sure anymore if it was because of the anger, dizziness, everything in general or nothing in particular.

"Nobody talks to me like that," Agatha replied without losing her composure. She approached one of the rosebushes: gently and very deliberately, she plucked one of the rose and began to caress the petals distractedly. “If you really want to marry for love, so be it.”

With the hand with which she was caressing the rose, she pointed to Baz. It was for an instant. Then she moved closer and put the rose in his pocket.

“Do not lose it. You have a hundred years to find your ... ‘love’.”

And just like that, she left.

Baz went back to the party. He danced with more people. He chatted. And yet, he was completely distracted and to some extent he felt guilty. When (at last) the last guest left at dawn, he went to bed, leaving the rose on the bedside table without thinking too much about it.

He never got to fall asleep. An uneasy feeling began to invade him, from the bottom up. He tried to get up, but each movement hurt. Lacking the ability to do anything else, he waited. He waited until that indescribable discomfort was slowly waning, and when he finally managed to get up he felt strange. Lighter. Drier. He crawled towards the mirror, tripping over along the path with his violin case, looking for any anomaly and ... He found them.

He was much thinner than he had been a couple of hours ago, and paler: he was still him, but there was nothing left of the beauty he had displayed the previous night in the ballroom. It seemed that everything between his skin and bones had been removed: his eyes had sunk, framed by deep dark circles and had lost their shine. He seemed a different person. Even his hair had turned a dirty black. Frightened, he ran to the servants’ dorms and burst into the housekeeper’s room.

“Penny!” Everything was silent and she was nowhere to be found. He ran to the kitchen: he couldn’t see anything.

“Baz!” It was Penny’s voice. He heard a tinkling, and he turned on the lights. He still didn’t see her. “Baz! Over here!"

Penny’s voice was coming out of a teapot placed on the countertop. The tinkling was her jumping.

“Penny what… What happened?” He did not hear the answer. A strong pain invaded his upper gum, and he raised his hands to his mouth waiting to see blood. There was nothing. But the pain passed, two long fangs dug into his lower lip.

“Baz, you are…”

“Penny, let’s go.”

Baz picked Penny up in his hands. She weighed more than he expected, and she was empty. Or maybe it was because of all the weight he had lost in such a short time. He ran to the most remote wing of the castle, the only place where they wouldn’t wake anyone up and that could give them answers: the library.

“Baz.” The boy was frantic. He mumbled something intelligible under his breath as he ran from one side to the other, hysterical. “BAZ!”

He stopped and looked down at the teapot.

"Sit down," she ordered. Baz did it. “Now you're going to take a deep breath, and you're going to tell me what you did last night.”

And he told her. He told her, to the extent that he remembered, of the anger he had carried all day; of Agatha’s appearance, of the screams, of the rose…  The rose.

“Hey, and what do you have to do with all that?” He finished with, as way of conclusion.

“Collateral damage of the spell. Agatha is a witch, but she is not cruel. I doubt she wants you to live a hundred years alone. Show me the rose”

Baz picked Penny up again and went back to his room: the rose was placed carelessly on the bedside table, but now it gave off a strange glow.

“Baz, are you sleepy?”

He shook his head.

“Me neither.”

#  **Year 87 Before the Rose**

The girl, barely five years old, peeked shyly into the reception room, out of which an ambassador had just come out. Upon seeing her enter, her parents left aside the heated argument between them, which she interpreted as a permission to approach her mother.

“Mom, do vampires exist?”

The kings looked at each other, bewildered.

“Why do you ask?” The mother inquired.

“A boy in my class says that there is one in the abandoned castle.”

“Mordelia, vampires do not exist. It’s all tales. And now go to bed.”

As soon as the princess was away, the king faced his wife.

“Why did you lie to her?”

“I do not want her to know.”

“He's my son. And her brother.”

“It's a vampire. And there’s nothing more to be said about it.”

After that fateful party seven years ago, Baz spent three days practically locked in the library. In that time, he discovered that his heart was not beating; that he did not need to sleep and that he did not feel hunger, but he did feel... Thirst. On the third day he had found the answer in the books: his parents, convinced that he had some kind of illness, refused to believe him.

On the fourth day he almost killed a maid, and only then did they resign themselves to admit the obvious: Baz was a vampire.

It was he himself who, after ending the plague of rats that inhabited the dungeons, left with Penny (who had accepted her new fate very casually) to the abandoned castle in the middle of a forest about which there were too many legends for anyone to come close to it. He forbade his entire family to visit him, even his father. Publically, Baz had gone to another country to negotiate trade relations and did not know when he would return. When Mordelia was born two years later, Baz didn’t even know about it. In the same way that his parents did not learn that Agatha, aware that the curse had been excessive but having no intention of canceling it, had put at the disposal of his son an army of talking furniture and cutlery, commanded by Penny. Neither did they know that their son in those seven years had read more books than he ever had in his life, nor that, if he was a great violinist before, he was now the best.

Speaking of not knowing, they did not even know that Baz had tried to commit suicide. Repeatedly. Enough to lose count. After each new attempt, Penny would find him lying on his bed, repeating over and over again "I do not want to kill anyone." And the worst thing for her was that he had not done it yet: he had more than enough with the animals that dwelled the area. Penny knew it, but Baz did not. Baz could see nothing but the stupid way he had ruined his life. Love? Who would love a vampire?

#  **Year 19 Before the Rose**

In an unknown city, at the edge of a huge forest, in possession only of a half-ruined house, a change of clothes and a lot of ideas and to top it off, with a baby in his arms. Davy took a deep breath. He could no longer travel, it was clear. He could not leave the kid alone, let alone take him with him. He would have to ... settle down. Ugh. That word made his stomach turn.

The boy smiled, completely oblivious to the nuisance that he entailed for his father.

“You could have stayed with your mother…” Then he realized. He did not know the name of the child; in her haste, Lucy had failed to tell him. “Simon”, he said after thinking about it for a while. Yes: Simon was a name as good as any other. He left him on the floor, fiddling with the straps of the backpack and opened the windows. First things first: if they were going to settle down, the house would have to be cleaned up.

#  **Month 2 Before the Rose**

Davy was obsessed with overthrowing the adjoining government. Simon, accustomed as he was to his father's follies, wasn’t too worried. The rest of the town thought differently, but that did not matter as much to the father as it did to the son. Simon had heard the story thousands of times: that a century ago the neighboring kingdom, where he was born, ran smoothly, that the kings were righteous. That their heir was going to be a great king. That he disappeared. That instead of reigning the first child, the second ascended to the throne and everything had gone from bad to worse. With his death just a few weeks ago and the reigning chaos regarding the next king’s coronation, it was his chance. Now or never.

It was raining. Simon was in the library, as he always was when it rained.

"Hello, Simon." Upon hearing his name, he looked up from the book. Looking directly at him was Philipa. He smiled.

“Good Morning.”

“What are you reading?”

“Oh, nothing, a fairy tale” and he went back to reading.

“Is it interesting?”

He nodded without taking his eyes off the book.

“Hey, when are you going to ask me to marry you?”

“I'm reading. You could ask me, for a change.”

“I can’t. I am a girl.”

“What a load of nonsense.”

“If I asked you, would you say yes?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure.” And she laughed. She still didn’t take it seriously.

She sat next to him. Simon finished the book, returned it to the shelf and picked up another. Meanwhile, Philipa got lost in her thoughts.

That the heiress of the fief in which he lived was infatuated with Simon had many advantages: She had taken his father out of prison once and everyone treated him with a deference that in some way made him feel uncomfortable, although it was always better than being "the son of the madman". But it could also be a bore: Simon did not understand what Philipa, a rich and noble girl obsessed with perfecting her swordsmanship, saw in Simon, who did not leave the city's library except to eat or sleep.

“Simon, your father is leaving today, right?” Simon finally looked up from the book.

“I had forgotten.”

By the time Simon got home, Davy was about to leave. The farewell was not particularly emotional for either of them; they were used to it.

"Should I ask Philippa to check up on you every once in a while until I come back?"

“No way, she is capable of coming to live here. Be careful, please.”

“I will.”

But by the time he disappeared from Simon's sight, Davy was already thinking about something else. He got lost in thought very easily, so he did not realize that he was lost until nightfall. It was then that he heard the howls. "I should not have gotten into the woods" was all he had time to think before being surrounded by a dozen pairs of eyes that shone in the rain. He forced the horse to turn around and spurred him.

The wolves followed.

Davy was calm. It took a lot to freak him out, and he knew that it was impossible for the wolves to catch up to his horse. That leaving them behind was only a matter of time. But of course, the animal did not think so: came to a point, it reared. Davy fell and was left alone. He was not so calm anymore.

He ran in the direction of what looked like a tower, which stood over the trees. He arrived at a gate. It was so rusty it yielded after a few blows and pushes and Davy found himself in the garden of a huge palace, very dark and almost abandoned, safe from the wolves.

“Hello?”

Davy expected a lot of things: for the castle to be abandoned, for some madman to be living inside (an actual madman), for some kind of monster to be locked up inside… 

But if there’s something he wasn’t expecting it was to be welcomed by a teapot.

“Goodnight sir. How may I help you?”

He must be a little out of it, he thought. He was not particularly shocked to see a talking teapot.

“I'm lost.”

The talking teapot guided him to a huge lit fireplace. It was a big castle and very, very dark. Simon would love it.

While he was admiring the castle, someone entered the room.

“Penny, what…?”

“Baz, it was raining and…”

“Penny, why is there a human in the castle?”

Davy got up and turned around, not knowing what to expect: he did not get to see what or who it was.

In the short time it took for him to be locked up in the dungeon, he only had time to see that the one who should be the owner of the castle, had hands. White, very pale hands, but at least he wasn’t a piece of furniture.

#  **Day 60 Before the Rose.**

Simon had lived for nineteen years on stories. Real stories, that his father told him about his travels, before he met that girl and before the appearance of Simon. Sometimes, those stories made him feel guilty: after all, he was the reason his father was enclosed in that city. That he didn’t leave the house for more than a month at a time. And yet, Davy had told him time and time again that this was fine, that he was worth it.

Simon knew that one day he would carry on those stories: one day he would be the one to pick up his backpack and start walking in a randomly chosen direction. He had known it for as long as he could remember, and he simply waited patiently for that day to come. In the meantime, he read. It was his way to escape ahead of time. However, lately something had changed. Something had settled in Simon's stomach and kept pulling him forward. Impatience. He wanted to leave that city. Not at that moment, of course. Winter was about to start and he had enough with his father's trip. So there he was, rereading for the hundredth time the only book they had at home and his favorite (one that the owner of the library had given him when he took it out for the ninth time) and waiting. For what? Who knew.

The knocking on the door scared him. Strong, uncontrolled. They did not even seem human.

They were not.

When Davy showed up saying that he had bought a horse because it was intelligent, Simon did not pay much attention to him and yet it must be because there it was, was banging on the door as if it wanted to throw it down. Simon did not have time to think: he grabbed his sword, climbed onto the animal and let himself be carried, praying to whoever was up there for  his father to fine. Or at least alive. He was mentally shuffling all the possibilities ("they have robbed him, they have killed him, they have imprisoned him, they have kidnapped him") when he arrived at the enormous iron gates that had saved his father's life the night before. He left his horse tied to the gate, and took a deep breath and drew his sword before entering the castle. The interior seemed completely empty: “it must be abandoned”, he thought. Trying to make as little noise as possible and cursing himself for not having accepted when Philipa offered to teach him to move like something more dignified than a duck, he began to go through room after room.

He had never had much patience, and by the time he found the stairs that lead down, he began to get impatient. He descended step after step. He had not walked much before he heard a voice:

“Anyone there!?”

Simon started to run.

“Dad! What are you doing here?”

“Simon! How...? It doesn’t matter. Go away. You have to leave. He's going to lock you up, too.”

Davy had been locked up all night, and he still had not figured out how he was going to get out of there. He did not care much either: it would not be the first time he had spent some time in captivity, but Simon... Simon was another story.

_______________

 

When Penny saw the boy enter, the first thing that came to her mind was to approach him. Then she thought that one person in the dungeons was more than enough, and she went to find Baz. The vampire had spent all night in his room; he hadn’t even allowed Penny herself to get close.

“Baz, we have another visitor.”

“Throw him out.”

“I can’t. He came for the man from last night.”

“Well, let them both go.”

Upon hearing that, the teapot became angry.

“That’s it. You go.”

“Are you crazy! I'll kill someone.”

“Baz, you've gone ninety-nine years without killing anyone. Who says you're going to start now?”

“There were no humans here before. Now there are.”

“Baz, you have ten seconds to go down there or I'll stop speaking to you.”

The prince huffed and crawled out of bed. He picked up the teapot and, after calling the chandelier, started walking towards the dungeons.

Simon did not hear the steps, but he did notice the presence behind him. He stood up and turned around.

The first thing he saw was white. Baz's skin had worsened over time, and if he had started out pale, it was pure paper by now. Then, the suit: tailored in an old-fashioned way, as if it had been made to last century’s fashion. His hair, black like few things he had seen before. His eyes. When they talked about the beauty of gray eyes in books, they must have been talking about that. Simon thought they were missing something, but he could not put his finger on what it was.

Then he pushed him, and Simon got blown away. It was then that he found the adjective: fossilized. The boy before him was completely fossilized, buried alive. And yet, he still had something. His cheekbones were spectacular. There were the remains of someone who must have been beautiful  once.

“What are you doing here?”

Simon got back on his feet.

“I've only come to free my father. Please, let us go.”

He approached him. And to the chandelier. Baz could see him.

He had blue eyes. A shade of blue that would be nothing out of the ordinary, but Baz had not seen the sky for too long. The bronze curls. And yet, what caught his eye the most was the color of his skin. A soft tan, constantly interrupted by innumerable freckles, that seemed to scream that he was alive.

But he was not going to back down.

“I'm not going to let intruders go unpunished. One of you must stay.”

He immediately regretted it. Why would he want them to stay?

“I'll stay.”

_ Of course _ , Davy thought.

“Simon, I'm older. Let me stay. There’s a lot of…”

“Dad, you still have a country to save.”

He did not have time to say more. Baz dragged Davy out of the palace and closed the door again. Simon heard the gallop of the fleeing horse.

“Baz, please, give that boy a room.”

Penny's ability to stay calm was sometimes exasperating for the vampire.

After they showed him the room, Simon locked himself in it. He wanted to burst into tears.

Penny followed Baz into his.

“Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, I demand an explanation. Now.”

“What do I know, Penny! I was not thinking clearly!”

“That's clear.”

Penny did know why. She knew there were only two months left. She knew this was his only hope. And he knew that, deep down, Baz had not given up. He knew that this was his last chance. So she hopped off, on her way to Simon's room.

#  **Day 55 Before the Rose.**

“Go down there right now and invite him to dinner.”

“Penny, I will not take that risk.”

“Oh, you will. The boy has been living off bread and water for five days straight and hasn’t left the room.”

“What if I kill him?”

“Baz, you want to talk to him, right?”

The vampire nodded.

“Then go right now. If you kill him, well, bad luck. We will be back to square one.”

That was a terrible thing to say, but Penny was beginning to despair. Baz got up, took a deep breath (which, although unnecessary, he had gotten used to doing) and marched towards his guest's room. He knocked on the door.

“Yes?”

Inside, Simon was listening to some story that the closet was telling him about when she was some important noble lady’s lady-in-waiting.

“Uhh ... Snow?”

“Yes.”

“Come down for dinner in half an hour.”

He left with a completely unnecessary slam of the door.

Simon huffed and threw himself on the bed. It did not take long until he heard the characteristic clink of Penny approaching, followed by a bathtub.

“Come on, get up. We have half an hour to get you ready.”

“Get me ready for what?”

“I mean, you’re not thinking of dining dressed like that, right?”

Indeed, Simon was still wearing the clothes he had arrived in: old and a somewhat torn, now it was also dirty.

“I’m not going to go to dinner, dressed like this or any other way.”

If Penny wasn’t a teapot, she would have rolled her eyes.

“Come on, get in the bath and we’ll talk.” And she hid behind the closet. Not wanting to argue (or do anything else), Simon obeyed. Penny kept talking from outside his field of vision.

“Look, Simon, I don’t know you that well. But seeing as it took you less than twenty-four hours to come for your father, and from the little we’ve talked, you don’t look like someone who wants to stay in this little room for the rest of his life. So at least give him a chance. Think about how you would be if you had been confined in such a place for so long, without seeing the light of day or being able to approach the world because you believe that you are a danger to the rest of humanity.”

Dinner was somewhat uncomfortable. Baz could not take his eyes off Simon, from which Penny deduced she had done a good job. Simon, on the other hand, could not take his eyes off the food: he was emptying plate after plate. The cook, a walking stove with long metallic arms, after almost a hundred years without being able to cook for anyone, had decided to show off. After a long while of uncomfortable silence, Baz tried what he had been wanting to do since he had summoned Simon to dinner: to start a conversation.

“What do you think of the castle?”

"It’s huge," Simon answered, through the mouthful of food. “I like it.”

“From now on, this is your home. You can go wherever you want except to the west wing.”

This time, Simon swallowed before answering:

“What’s in the west wing?”

“IT’S FORBIDDEN!”

Simon didn’t say anything else. After dinner, he went back to his room. He was not in such a bad mood anymore.

#  **Day 52 Before the Rose.**

It took Penny two days to convince Baz have dinner with Simon again. His excuse? That damned thirst for blood again. So, after going hunting, Baz changed his suit, picked up his hair and went to Simon's room.

“Good night.”

Simon moved his head slightly as a way of greeting and kept polishing his sword, out of boredom rather than necessity.

“Simon, uhhh… Would you have dinner with me again?”

This time, Simon looked up and nodded. Like every time he met those eyes, Baz’s stomach turned.

Dinner went a lot smoother the second time.   
“How are things going out there?”

“Well, there's nothing interesting going on. i think the Northern countries are going to war against each other again, but other than that everything is quite peaceful. There are no problems around here since the civil war in Pitch, about sixty years ago. Because of the heir’s disappearance.”

Hearing those words, Baz looked at Penny. She shrugged, unaware of the news.

#  **Day 45 Before the Rose**

“Snow?”

“Yeah?”

Baz took a deep breath.

“Do you get bored in there?”

“A bit. Why?”

“Is there anything you would like to do?”

Simon opened the door and peeked out. He had been instructed not to open it before the owner of the castle unless explicitly ordered to, but this was an emergency.

“Do you have books?”

_________________

He hated being blindfolded. Philipa did it too often, usually when she wanted to surprise him or take him somewhere. Simon was not particularly agile, when he could see he walked through life as if he were a drunk rhinoceros (in Davy's words), and without seeing he was completely at the mercy of whoever was ahead. It was not a very pleasant sensation.

And yet, there he was: letting a vampire blindfold him, a vampire who had said himself that he’d be able to kill him at any moment. He wasn’t fighting back. Why?

He heard the creak of what must have been a wooden door, and felt Baz's hand pulling him inside. Curtains sliding. The light went through the blindfold that covered him and seconds later, Baz took it off.

Books. Lots of books. Millions of books. More books that Simon could read in his whole life. It was an enormous tower full of storeys and storeys of printed paper that was calling out for him. For the first time since his arrival to the castle, Simon smiled.

Baz saw that smile. Something he could not name happened in his chest. He wasn’t able to realize that it wasn’t the first time he experienced that: it had been too long.

#  **Day 30 Before the Rose**

At least Simon was no longer bored, rather the opposite. Suddenly he lacked time to read book after book. The one he had in his house, the one he knew by heart and never got tired of was there but he couldn’t even open it: there were too many new things. Too many books he had never heard of, too many stories waiting for him.

Now that he had books again, he also recovered his energy, and began to train in the garden with the sword. His father had trained him since he was very young, and although he didn’t exactly have a natural gift for swordsmanship he made up for it with an almost superhuman tenacity. That, and the passion he put into everything he did.

There was a month left until the curse reached its deadline. Penny began to despair as she skipped through the castle in search of Baz, who for the first time in a long time was neither in his room playing the violin nor in the library reading. One hundred years without changing habits and now suddenly… 

She found him in one of the ballrooms, with the window open, taking advantage of the huge clouds that covered the sky, observing completely  captivated. Making as little noise as possible, Penny peeked in, curious to see what had her master so focused that he did not even notice her presence, and what she saw was Simon in the garden stabbing an invisible enemy in a thousand different ways with his sword.

“It seems like you like our guest.”

Baz jumped in surprise.

“Not at all.”

“You don’t? And what were you doing?”

“Observe.”

“Sure… And tell me, when did you realize?”

“Realize what?”

Seriously. Sometimes Penny would give anything not to be a teapot. Even if it was just so she could roll her eyes.

“That you’re in love.”

“I’m not in love. I can’t even observe in peace. Just shut up and go sit in a cupboard or whatever it is you teapots do when you have free time.”

And he left with agitated steps.

But Penny already had a plan in mind.

#  **Day 21 Before the Rose.**

Simon was returning from the library with a book in his hands. That one was especially interesting: a man who, after being betrayed, returned home fourteen years later to take revenge. He was absorbed in reading, and perhaps that was why he almost didn’t hear the sound.

But he did.

He closed the book and began to follow the sound, until he stood before a door: Baz's room. It was a violin. No. It was the best-played violin piece Simon had ever heard in his life: the flow of the notes, the emotion, everything. He didn’t even know what piece it was, but if they had asked him when he stopped hating the monster that had him locked up, he would have picked this one without hesitation.

#  **Day 13 Before the Rose.**

Things needed to be sped up.

It was true that things were getting better: Baz kept watching Simon when he trained, and Simon had noticed; Baz had started playing the violin in front of Simon, and sometimes even played in the library, while he read. They talked. They could spend hours talking about anything. Baz was losing his fear of attacking Simon and he was beginning to appreciate in some way the owner of the house, who as far as he knew, could very well be a vampire. But there was only half a month left and Penny wanted her body back.

“Hey Baz, what about we throw a party?”

“A ... What for?”

“Well, what do I know, look: we can open the big hall, the ballroom; there we set up the table, we put candles, we call the piano…”

“You have weirder ideas than Fiona.”

Baz said that sentence with his usual poker face, but Penny, who hadn’t heard him talk about his family for almost fifty years, smiled inside.

“Baz, think about it. Maybe that way…”

“Maybe what, Penny? Maybe he’ll be interested in me? In a vampire?”

Simon thought it was a great idea, and offered to help prepare everything but Penny sent him to get his measures taken so the wardrobe could get him a new suit and there she went, to tell Baz the news that he was not going to get out of this one.

The vampire accepted it with resignation, and that's how Penny organized all the staff to get the main ballroom cleaned in record time. Was it huge for only two people? Totally. But she was excited, and that was enough.

The clock struck nine o'clock, and Simon appeared at the door. Taking a good look at him, Penny thought, he wasn’t all that. The boy was alright, but there were much better-looking ones in court. There was that boy… Micah, was his name… Well, Baz liked Simon and she was not going to complain.

Simon was spinning around, trying to look at all the paintings on the ceiling at the same time; almost all of the forest, which was seen from the windows, and the ornaments on the table when Baz entered.

He forgot about everything else.

By now he had figured out that Baz was a vampire. He hadn’t asked anyone, but he was increasingly convinced. Seeing him then made him doubt: in the books, vampires were dark, cruel beings, that had no problem killing whoever it was to feed themselves. The boy before him, in the technical aspects, did fit the descriptions: he had never seen him eat or sleep; he was very pale, and did not go out into the sun. But all that alleged evil was simply not there. Baz looked at him with surprise, his mouth ajar; the eyes, of that color taken from the description of the heroes in his books, reflecting something indescribable for Simon and that Penny, from a corner, did know how to identify.

When Baz managed to look away from Simon's eyes ("he should style his hair like this more often", he thought) the first thing he did was close his mouth and try to regain his composure. Only then he brought Simon to the table. Once again, only he ate, while Baz watched him. They didn’t stop talking. They talked about books, about music, about swords, and Simon didn’t remember ever talking so much with a person, accustomed to his pensive father and the blunt answers he used to give Philipa. He found himself thinking about how someone could be so interesting despite having been locked in a castle for much longer, Simon suspected, than he had been outside.

The moment Simon finished eating, he began to hear a piano. It played by itself, from a corner of the table. It was a much more cheerful piece than the ones owner of the castle used to play, and he stood up.

“Baz, do you dance?”

Baz knew how to dance. Or at least, at some point in his life he had known how to. But a dance had been the cause of his current situation, and he had not done so for nearly a hundred years.

“No.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Simon took him by the hand, dragged him to the middle of the room and they positioned themselves. Baz's hand on Simon's shoulder, and Simon resting his hand on Baz's hip. For once, he was grateful for what Philipa had taught him.

“Chin up. Don’t look at the ground.”

They began to move. Simon led Baz, counting in a low voice.

“One two three. One two three. Don’t drag your feet.”

His counting turned into a mumble, which faded gradually. They danced the whole piece, then another one and another one. Baz remembered almost immediately and picked up the pace easily. The songs became slower. Simon found himself almost hugging the vampire, moving in circles and Baz wondered, casually, what would happen if he kissed him.

The brush of his fangs against his lower lip reminded him that he could not do that.

 

#  **Hour 51 Before the Rose.**

The sun was setting. Through the window you could see the cloudy sky, growing darker. Baz had gone hunting, and Penny was in the kitchen. It was time to go to the west wing. Before leaving the room, in a gesture that was out of nervousness rather than anything else, Simon looked both ways. The corridor was empty. He walked slowly, trying not to make noise and look natural at the same time: he still had not gotten used to the fact that the furniture was everywhere watching.

The door was quite ordinary: wooden, somewhat heavy. It was closed but had no locks. It didn’t seem to hide any great treasure.

Simon went in. The room was very dark, and once he got used to the gloom he saw that everything was completely destroyed: the curtains, the furniture, the paintings... There were several of them, depicting what must have been Baz's family. A woman, a man and several children of all ages. One of the wooden frames held a torn canvas. Overcome by curiosity, he did his best to reassemble it and found a very well-made portrait: a boy with dark skin, gray eyes and high cheekbones. Simon soon recognized the model, despite how much he’d changed.

He would have spent all night looking at the portrait, but something else drew his attention. On a table, in a corner, there was a rose. It was open, and some petals had fallen but what stood out to Simon was the strange glow it gave off.

“Simon! What are you doing here?” It was Penny.

“What? I…”

“Simon, you have to get out of here. Baz is going to…”

“But…”

“Go, hurry up.”

“Penny, why…?”

“Simon, please go, fast.”

“I'm not going to leave until you explain what that rose is.”

“Too late.”

Baz's outline appeared, silhouetted against the light of the corridor.

“Snow, what are you doing here?”

“Baz, I'm sorry. I…”

“Go away.”

“Baz, no…”

“LEAVE!!” And Simon left. He ran to his room, and as soon as he grabbed his sword he left the castle. In no time was crossing the forest.

“Baz, how could you…?”

“Penny, shut up.”

“He was our last hope.”

“What hope? There is no hope, Penny. There never has been. Agatha…”

“TYRANNUS BASILTON GRIMM-PITCH! I'm so tired of you being melodramatic! Simon has gone to the forest. Alone. And do not expect me to give you a list of all the creatures that are loose out there.”

Baz could perfectly imagine Penny's face at that moment if she were human: the same one she had when his siblings got into the reception room during an important meeting.

But then Simon's blue eyes came to his head and his face when he saw the library for the first time and the night they danced together and he thought that, even if he remained a vampire, he did not want to let him go. He ran out towards the forest.

#  **Hour 4 Before the Rose**

“Baz, will you let me in?”

He did not get an answer.

Simon stepped into the room, and found the vampire sitting in a backless chair, with the rose between his fingers and his eyes lost somewhere on the floor. He had changed his clothes, so the bites and scratches, the result of having saved his life, were out of sight except for those on his face. The hardest thing for Simon was that he had come out unharmed.

When Baz caught up to him, the pack of wolves was surrounding Simon, who defended himself with the sword as best as he could, but he was not going to endure much longer. It had been the vampire who had made them flee, fighting with several of them.

“Baz, I… I'm sorry.”

“It’s okay. It's already daytime, anyway. Leave if you want.” His tone was completely monotone, without the slightest trace of emotion.

Simon stood still at the door. He wanted to do something. He needed to do something.

“What are you waiting for? I'm telling you that you can go. You're free.”

But he did not know what.

“Baz, I… I don’t know if I want to leave.”

Silence.

“I'll be in the library.”

Baz didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look up when Simon walked out the door, and continued to stare off into space, spaced out.

#  **Hour 2 Before the Rose.**

The first to realize that someone was approaching were the pruning shears, who saw the crowd in the distance approaching the castle. They ran to warn Penny, who leaned out the window to see an armed crowd, led by a girl with a drawn sword.

They were under attack.

Penny entrusted the chandelier with organizing the defense before running up to the west wing. Baz was still there, in the same position Simon had left him.

“Baz, we’re being attacked.”

She did not get any reaction.

“Baz, please.”

Nothing.

“Basilton, I don’t have time for nonsense. They’re going to invade the castle and there are two hours left until the rose withers.”

Desperate, Penny left in search of Simon. Crossing the hall, he heard the voice of the man who had arrived at the castle two months ago.

“A vampire, yes. He has my son locked up.”

“Perfect. I’ll take care of him.”

Fear did most of the work: the last thing those people were expecting was to find an army of furniture and cutlery attacking them and most of them, who had arrived there in the heat of the moment but had not brandished a weapon in their life, fled instantly. The rest did not take long to follow them. In a matter of minutes there were only Davy and Philipa.

As the two went to the dungeons, Penny found Simon and quickly summed up the situation. The boy, far from having the reaction that Penny expected, panicked.

“She’s going to kill him, Penny. She will…”

“She can’t. He's a vampire, Simon. He can not die.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know her. She is capable of… torturing him, or something like that.”

When Simon reached the west wing, Baz was still alone.

“Baz, please, you have to leave. I’ll talk to them.”

At least he reacted. He looked at Simon, but did not say anything.

Philipa entered.

“Simon, what are you doing here?”

“Where’s my father?”

Davy came in after Philippa, but Simon did not have time to rejoice.

“Simon, move! He’s the vampire!”

Those words brought him back to reality.

“Baz, please leave.”

With a nod and without letting go of the rose, the vampire jumped out the window to the next balcony.

“Simon! What are you doing?”

“Dad, go home. Please. Both of you.”

But Philipa did not listen to him. She threw herself toward the window, sword in hand, but found Simon himself stopping her.

“Simon, I'm going to protect you. At all costs.”

“Protect me from what?”

“From the beast, obviously.”

“There's nothing to protect, Philipa.”

“Simon, you don’t realize. It has brainwashed you.”

Each time it was more complicated to stop her attacks, designed to disarm him.

"You are the one who is brainwashed, Philipa. He has not done anything to you.”

“He's a monster Simon, and he has kidnapped you.”

With those words, in a single movement the girl pushed Simon, took the sword and jumped out the window chasing Baz, who was still fleeing, but the distance was getting shorter.

Baz would never know if the cause was a stone, a broken tile, or just rain, but jumping from one balcony to another Philipa caught up with him. She raised her sword.

Something fell on her. Simon.

“Philipa, that's enough.”

She tossed and turned, trying to break free and they smashed into the railing which gave way. He grabbed onto one of the ledges.

She didn’t.

And she fell.

Baz lifted Simon up.

“SIMON!”

Davy gesticulated from the balcony of the west wing.

“Dad, I'm fine! Look for Penny, I’ll be right there!”

 

On the ground, the rose lost one more petal. It was still pouring rain.

 

“Snow, why did you do that?”

“Well… I don’t know. Because I wanted to?

“But why?”

“I suppose ... I’ve fallen in love.”

#  **Minute 40 Before the Rose.**

For once in his life, Baz ignored his fangs. And his fear. And he let himself be when Simon raised his head, closed his eyes and kissed him.

Penny was in the main hall, explaining the situation to Davy, when she started to grow. In a few seconds she was five foot two again, she had hair, face, hands and feet; even her glasses had returned. Around her, the cups and even the chair Davy was sitting on began to change as well, and in a matter of minutes the castle was full of people. No one except Penny was very sure of what had happened, but it didn’t matter, because they were human again.

Baz still wasn’t over Simon's statement, nor the kiss, nor the abs that showed under the soaking shirt when he himself began to change. His skin was darker, and it was warm. His hair was once again as black as before and his eyes regained the brightness and the green hues. He regained his previous weight, and muscles.

But the best was the pulse. His heart was beating again, he was alive again.

"I knew it," Simon said offhandedly.

The pain in his mouth returned, identical to that of that night, a hundred years ago. But this time when it finished, the fangs were not there.

They were not there. One hundred years living with them and finally. At last they had disappeared.

He hugged Simon, this time without qualms. Knowing that nothing was going to happen. That he was a human again. And maybe it was the rain, but Baz was convinced he was crying. That the two of them were crying. He was human again. One hundred years later he was human again.

It was already dawn when they came back into the castle. Baz had assumed it would be full of people, but not even Penny was there. He would have to thank her later.

They arrived at Baz's room and Simon could not look away from him. The portrait didn’t do him justice. Actually, it was far from it.

In a gesture that seemed too fluid to Baz, Simon took off his shirt and threw it to the ground. A puddle formed around.

“You are… Incredible.”

Simon blushed.

“You too.”

“Simon, why…? Why?”

"You called me by my name," he pointed out. “First of all, you have never done any harm to anyone. You were just trying to protect others. And I understand that you’ve held me in here. You were alone and… But I don’t think it was because of that. It happened, period.” Simon surprised himself with the fluency with which he spoke. “Do you love me?”

“Since you saw the library for the first time.” Baz didn’t even have to stop to think about it.

Baz was smiling, and Simon kissed him again. His lips, his cheekbones, his jaw. He unbuttoned his shirt, and continued with his shoulders, which were now wide and much firmer. And his neck. his neck was warm.

Baz woke up somewhat disoriented. That was his bed, that much was clear. And his room. But there was someone else in it. Simon. Even asleep he looked like a Greek god, his curls scattered on the pillow and his skin dotted with moles. Baz had touched each and every one the night before. (Or the day before, Baz was not sure, but it didn’t matter much to him either way).

He smiled. Things were okay. At last everything was okay.

#  **EPILOGUE**

#  **Year 2 After the Rose.**

The hardest thing of all, by far, had been putting things in order. When Baz finally left the castle, only Mordelia, his little sister who was not so small anymore, was still alive. The first thing she said when he saw him was "I knew vampires existed", quite childish for a woman almost a hundred years old. She had proclaimed him her long-lost son and he had risen to the throne, displacing his grandnephew who had not taken it especially badly. It’s not like he wanted to be king in a kingdom on the verge of bankruptcy.

The economy was a disaster. Foreign policy was a disaster. It was going to be difficult for Baz and Simon to get the country out of that situation and they had gotten to work right away: little by little, they were getting the country off the ground.

The added complication was that Baz was completely out of context: he had no idea what had happened to the kingdom in recent years and Simon was in charge of catching him up. Hearing that all the people he had lived with had already died, often left him completely devastated: Jamie had died barely three years after his disappearance, during a war, and in his family only remained his siblings’ grandchildren. It was often Simon who cut off the meetings prematurely to give him a break.

But that day they dropped everything. It was an early summer morning. In the castle’s garden, among the roses, in a tent set up to accommodate as many people as possible, Davy officiated the ceremony and at his side Simon smiled from ear to ear. Baz appeared on the arm of Penny, moving towards the altar. The ceremony was quick, partly due to the heat: it had been Baz who insisted on doing it on that date, saying that it had been too cold for the rest of his life and Simon could not agree more. The atmosphere was relaxed and cheerful, and if someone had a problem with two kings in the kingdom, they kept quiet forever. Among all the people who came to congratulate them, one of them, a blonde woman with clear skin and eyes, approached Baz, congratulated him and handed him a red rose. He stared at her without knowing very well how to react and she had already turned around to leave when he called her by her name.

“Agatha!”

The woman turned around and smiled. Baz smiled back.

“Baz, what's wrong?”

He kissed him on the lips.

“Nothing, Simon.”

Baz threw the rose to the ground and did not think about it again.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, if you understand Spanish, please go read the original cause it's so much more beautiful than English can capture (and I'm only slightly biased)  
> I want to thank @black_tea_blue_pens for the amazing fic and helping with the translation and more importantly, for trusting me with her story  
> and @ninanineto, who's been a huge help with translating this fic, thank you.


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